Why vanity symbolizing the peacock?

Answer 1

Peacocks came to symbolize vanity because humans envied them their splendid plumage and general appearance of calm confidence.

Once, ordinary people could never hope to own garments even faintly approaching the colors and beauty of the peacock's feathers, and certainly weren't likely to strut about looking proud of themselves.

Anthropomorphism led people to assume the peacock's proud bearing was just that - pride. In fact, of course, it's simply the way the bird carries itself, just as a certain type of dog might walk in a particular type of way, and the plumage of the male peacock is simply designed to appear attractive to peahens, and so keep the species going. In the same way, a male (cock) sparrow is designed to attract the female (hen) sparrow, but nobody would bother to envy a little brown, hopping, cheeping bird which might appear beautiful to a hen sparrow, but is purely nondescript in the eyes of many humans. Its relatives, canaries and other finches, have the misfortune to be sufficiently attractive to humans that they are kept captive for the pleasure of humans, but they still don't attract the envy that a peacock does.

The peacock, naturally, doesn't care what people think of him; his interest is only in peahens and possible rivals - other peacocks. People are just something to either ignore, while keeping a wary eye on them as predators.

The fact that people envied the peacock for possessing a beauty they could never aspire to caused them to see in the peacock the vanity they know they would feel if only they could look so gorgeous.

In the same way, many people today assume upon seeing a person they perceive as beautiful and confident that the person must be vain, simply because they themselves are envious and feel they themselves would be vain, if only they could look that good.